Abstract
The Camino of Santiago has demonstrated its role as a strategic factor in the socio-economic development of territories. This paper presents a ‘tool kit’ based on Best Practice, aiming at designing, developing and operating pilgrimage routes in Latin America, inspired by the lessons learned from the Camino de Santiago strategies and policies. The methodology of the research for this paper is open-ended questionnaires to experts and institutions and online surveys to pilgrims. It also builds on a review of academic literature.
The findings show that Latin America is a traditionally religious territory, with a high percentage of the population belonging to religious groups. Pilgrimages have a great potential to bring economic benefits to communities around existing routes and to enhance the development of new ones, which already take place organically but are not fully developed. There is a lack of involvement of the public sector in the design, planning and operation of these routes. Governance in creating policies and in their management is critical to success. Last but not least, strategic and focused marketing is needed where not all tools are valuable and efficient. The Way of Saint James is an inspiring example, but not all practices can be replicated or adapted.
Further investigations could analyse other realities (such as Rome, Lourdes, Fátima, etc.) to provide a complete range of benchmarking and enrich the conclusions of this work. The proposed recommendations could be implemented in territories where primary conditions exist and significantly impact the improvement of existing pilgrimage tourism routes or contribute to the development of existing ones. In this work, the Camino has been subjectively considered (as suggested in certain scientific and academic work) as the master model for the development of pilgrimage tourism in territories where the potential for this product exists or can be improved. In this paper, these learnings are suggested in the context of Latin America.
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Recommended Citation
Pardo, María Carmen; Cortés García, Mónica Cecilia; and Silva, Goretti
(2023)
"Developing Pilgrimage Tourism in Latin America: Lessons Learned from the Camino de Santiago,"
International Journal of Religious Tourism and Pilgrimage:
Vol. 11:
Iss.
4, Article 5.
doi:https://doi.org/10.21427/X5YN-KN05
Available at:
https://arrow.tudublin.ie/ijrtp/vol11/iss4/5
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21427/X5YN-KN05